Monday, February 8, 2010

11 miles…54 minutes….

Nope, not quite a land speed record, but for Deb and I on the pepto-bike, it is some sort of record.

We left Hayward yesterday with the skies bright blue and sunshine everywhere. Unfortunately, as we started over the hill towards Danville and the Iron Horse trail we saw that clouds were packed in the valley and it actually looked like it might rain.

Once we got to the starting point, we unloaded the bike (which thankfully fits in my truck) and started pedaling as soon as possible in an effort to get warm.

The problem with the Iron Horse trail is that it crosses at least eight thousand different streets on its way north. Every street forcing us to slow, look both ways and then ramp back up to our pace.

The slowing and then pushing to get back up to speed actually turned out to be a pretty good workout and when added to the various roving obstacles, rollerblading families, little kids on bikes, people walking dogs, ipod-wearing oblivious joggers, etc., really helped us work on our communication.

At the turn around point, the sun finally started peeking through the clouds and we were pedaling enough that we had warmed up. The ride back was more of the same. Dodging kids, dogs and people, slowing and then speeding up again...all in all we had a good ride. Next week, we might try to add some small hills to the mix and see how that works out.